


New Year

by blythechild



Series: Gift Fics 2016 [6]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Blackouts, Celebrations, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Memories, New Year's Eve, New York, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: Henry and Abraham ring in 2000 together. This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story is suitable for all readers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This gift story is for thesmallhobbit who prompted: _**Forever, Henry & Abe, seeing in a new year**_. I hope you like it and Happy Holidays!

“Abraham, I’m too old to climb to the roof in the middle of winter,” Henry muttered as he nevertheless followed his son up the access stairwell.

“That’s crap, Dad,” Abraham huffed and then held up, taking a few bracing breaths as he leaned against the handrail. Henry watched him closely – both as a physician and a father – checking for discomfort, signs of heaviness or pain… “Stop it. I’m fine. And you’re not too old for this – you’re younger than me! Well, you _appear_ younger than me at any rate…”

“It’s December in Manhattan, Abraham.” Henry tried not to sound condescending, but it came out like that anyway. “There are no trees eight storeys up. We’ll freeze faster than Shackleton in Antarctica. At least let me carry something…”

Abraham waved him off in aggravation. “How you’ve survived all this time without a single drop of whimsy, I’ll never understand, Pop…” He lurched forward and up again. Henry let out a long-suffering sigh and followed.

They reached the roof and had to put their shoulders into the door that was stiff from ice and snow and general disuse. The first blast of wind caused Henry to scrunch deeper into his scarf. Freezing to death was something he’d done a handful of times and decided that although it was painless in the end, _getting_ to that end was more than a little unpleasant. 

“Cold…” he muttered again, more like a petulant child this time. Abraham turned and gave him a mischievous, wind-whipped grin. _Oh dear, that was never good…_

“That’s why I brought the cognac!” He produced it from his bag with a typical Abraham flourish, as well as two mismatched mugs, some bread, cheese, and a small Tupperware container that sank into the snow lining the roof’s edge producing steam as it did so.

“We’re _eating_ on the roof in the middle of winter?” Henry’s eyebrows rose but he shuffled closer for a dose of cognac. He did so love a drop of Hennessy from time to time.

“Yes, we are. Eating while relaxed and warm is so last millennium. I’ve decided to innovate before I get too old and cranky.” Abraham gave Henry a pointed look and arched a bushy eyebrow at him. Then he cracked the lid on the Tupperware and Henry smelled his son’s famous beef burgundy stew. Clearly this was all a trap; Abraham knew how Henry felt about his stew. 

Abraham offered his father a spoon. “Dig in, fusspot.”

Henry did, but tried to make it look as if he did so in a state disappointed judgment. But, oh, the stew was wonderful…

They ate and drank and shivered in the windy snowfall for a while, and despite his intentions to find this all pointless, Henry felt contented standing with his son, brushing shoulders as they looked over the rooftops to the glowing otherworldly spires of the great metropolis. The searchlights from Times Square strafed the sky in a way that uneasily reminded Henry of the Blitz, but there was an effervescent quality to New York at night that made him think less on the past and more on the possibilities that lay ahead. And Abraham was like that too – always looking forward, not back. Henry was endless proud of him for his unflagging optimism. 

“So,” Abraham said suddenly and broke Henry’s revelry. “Another New Year.”

“Soon, yes…” Henry cupped his gloved hands around his mug as Abraham filled it again. They clicked the chipped mugs together, took matching deep swigs, and then as if transformed by it like a magic elixir, Henry decided to try on Abraham’s enthusiasm for size. “I’ve seen decades change, and centuries pass, but this will be my first _millennium_.”

He smiled as he glanced over the rim of his cup, and Abraham laughed, a hearty bark into the winter night, clapping him on the shoulder.

“That’s the spirit, Dad. It’ll be a whole NEW thing for you. Isn’t it wonderful that life can still seem new even when you’ve seen so much of it?”

“Yes, it is,” Henry said quietly. How had he managed to raise such a fantastic dreamer?

“And look at that view! Isn’t it something? It feels like the whole world is here tonight, looking up into the sky, just _waiting_ …” Abraham grinned and looked out over the vista with his hands in his pockets, as if he’d created it personally. “This town is something else, I tell ya.”

Henry stared at his son and thought _every new year with you is a gift_. He knew these moments wouldn’t continue indefinitely – it was wrong to treat any of them as something less than a treasure. After a long, contemplative silence he said, “Happy New Year, Abraham” and meant it down through his two-hundred-year-old bones.

“Happy New Year,” Abraham cheered back as he munched a slice of cheese. “I can’t wait to see what we get up to in the next millennium. Unless that Y2K thing launches us back to the stone age…”

“Y2K?”

“Some computer trouble,” Abraham shrugged. “Apparently folks built computers that only understand years ending in two digits. When midnight comes, and 99 turns to 00, people think computers will assume it is 1900 again. I guess that’s bad.”

“How colossally short-sighted,” Henry huffed. “And 1900 was a _dreadful_ year…”

“I don’t think it’s gonna happen, personally. Sounds like tinfoil hat stuff.”

“Hmmm, well, we’ll found out soon enough.” Henry pulled back his jacket sleeve to see his watch – one minute to go.

“I wish Mom were here to see this,” Abraham said suddenly. Henry looked at him, worried, but his son’s face was just wistful. And then it became obvious how he’d raised a dreamer – it had been Abigail’s doing.

“Me too,” Henry whispered. “Maybe she’s out there somewhere tonight, looking up and waiting…”

“That’d be good,” Abraham smiled.

The wind whirled around them but eventually even they could discern the growing sound that seemed to rise up to them from below, as if spoken by the streets themselves. 

“Listen… it’s coming…”

Henry looked to his watch. “Ten seconds…”

Then the city counted as one, numbers chanted in brownstones and cold-water flats, dive bars and 5-star restaurants, from jail cells and penthouses, and, Henry liked to think, maybe from the cold storage of his morgue. Memories and hopes streaming up into the midnight clouds to mix and become some inseparable, collective human ambition. 

_Five_ … He stepped to the lip of the roof.

 _Four_ … Abraham joined him, standing shoulder to shoulder.

 _Three_ … Looking out across the neighborhood, it was as if every light was on in every window.

 _Two_ … Henry raised his mug.

 _One_ … Abraham clicked his and yelled “Happy New Millennium!”

And then the entire city went dark at once to the sound of cheering and an explosion of fireworks lighting up lower Manhattan as bright as day.

“Whoa!” Abraham breathed.

“Y2K?” Henry asked.

The wave of celebration continued all around them from darkened buildings and spilling into the streets in shock and wonder. The fireworks popped on, peppering the sky, oblivious to the potential chaos below them, and Henry decided that was just fine.

“Who cares?” Abraham echoed. “The shop’s locked up tight as a drum and I’ve got a Winchester Model 70 downstairs in perfect working order. And I’ve been stockpiling wine for decades, so we’re all set – nothing to worry about.”

“That’s far-sighted planning indeed,” Henry smirked and wrapped a hand around Abraham’s shoulder. “But if it’s back to gaslamps and coal-burning stoves, it is _my_ time to shine.”

Abraham chuckled warmly and they stood over the black city watching the celebration together, not worrying about buggy computers or the future for an instant.


End file.
